recent posts

Friday, January 20, 2017

Featuring Matthew Borczon



Killing Ghosts

in shaking
and sleepless nights
in flashbacks
brought on
by triggers
I barely recognize
in paranoid rituals
I follow like
a road to salvation
in the moments
between awake
and asleep
I walk with ghosts

ghosts of soldiers
with no names
of Marines
with no legs
of children
with missing hands
and open wounds
from playing
on battlefields

of burn victims
black as pitch
who could be
men or women
soldier or civilian
adult or child
all crumbling
in front of me
like charcoal

some carry equipment
suction pumps
and IV stands
with dirty dressings
over infected skin grafts
and I have found
nothing in 5 years
to make them
want to leave

so they stay
inside my head
behind my eyes
in the darkest
corners of my life
because even
after 5 years

I still can’t
find a way
to even try
to kill the ghosts
of people
I was supposed
to save.



Baby, what’s mine is yours

Tasting bile
in the
back of
my throat
from screaming
at my wife
until  I
am too
hoarse
to apologies
and too
scared
to tell
her it
was the
smell of
burning meat
as she
cooked
on a
hot day
that put
me back
in that uniform
in that hospital
again.



Night terrors 2

After a
long night
full of
bad dreams
and sweaty
sheets
a crow
caws shrill
to tell
me that
I am
already dead
and
that  my
body is
back in
Afghanistan
in 2011

I wake
asking
him to
tell me
something
I don’t
already know.



The lies we tell

Mine.
the food
is good
I like
the hours
I read
a lot
the air
does not
taste like
ash and
blood or
smell like
burning flesh
I’m too
busy to
miss home
my dreams
are not
filled with
the cries
of dying
children.

Yours.
you’re fine
it’s easier
than you
thought
and everything
is getting
done and
school keeps
the kids
too busy
to worry
about you
Ezra no
longer asks
if I
think you
will die
and Hannah
did not
cry all
day on
Christmas
holding the
card you
sent her
and no
you don’t
think this
will change
us at all.


  
In between

You were
the first
to try
to grant
me
absolution
the first
to tell
me don’t
be too
hard on
myself
you were
the last
as well
but in
between
is me
and blood
covered nightmares
and ash
covered memories
and missing limbs
and me.



Good Days

Some days
I even
remember
good things
skies clear
of helicopters
and warm
evenings with
a real
Cuban cigar
talking with
young soldiers
completely
unaware
of how
much of
this war
I would
bring home.




BIO: Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy sailor. He has written two books of poetry, A Clock of Human Bones from the yellow chair review press and Battle Lines from Epic Rites. This summer he will release Ghost Train through Weasel Press and Sleepless Nights and Ghost Soldiers from Grey Borders Press. He has four children three jobs and still manages to find time to write and publishes often in the small press.

1 comment:

opiumpoetry said...

MAN! This might be the realest shit I ever read! Keep on rollin', man.